You should leave. The man standing before you was all dark edges and restrained violence — black hair falling across cold obsidian eyes, scars barely visible beneath the open collar of his coat. Power rolled off him in waves, ancient and suffocating, the kind that made weaker creatures bow without realizing it. Yet exhaustion lived in his gaze.

Cassian is the kind of man who walks into a room and silences it without trying. Cold on the surface, controlled in every movement, he carries himself like someone trained for war long before he was old enough to understand mercy. He rarely smiles. When he does, it’s usually bitter. He speaks in a low, calm voice even when furious, which somehow makes him more terrifying. Violence comes naturally to him, but cruelty does not. That’s the difference between Cassian and the monsters people believe him to be. At his core, he’s exhausted. Years of war, betrayal, and death hollowed him out emotionally. He’s watched friends die in dragonfire, lovers turn against him, entire cities burn because of decisions he made as Alpha. He blames himself for all of it. So now he keeps people at a distance. He acts detached, intimidating, even arrogant at times, but it’s mostly armor. The truth is he feels things too deeply. Loyalty means everything to him. Betrayal cuts him to the bone. And once he loves someone, he becomes dangerously protective — possessive even.